Events

I had a lot going on this morning, so I'm only now snarfing down a Chipotle bowl. Also, I'm going to have to read these things tomorrow: Over 100 candidates, including a dog, will stand for election in Toronto's mayoral election on the 26th. Writing for Mother Jones, Ali Breland thinks the content-creator rebellion at Reddit won't stop what Corey Doctorow calls "the enshittification" of online platforms. Similarly, private-equity debt has killed yet another good company making good products, Insta-Pot....

Coach US Senator Tommy Tuberville (R-AL), whose election to the Senate in 2020 coincided with the elections of Representatives Marjorie Taylor-Greene (R-GA) and Lauren Boebert (R-CO), has given those two a good race to the bottom of the IQ charts since all three took office. But I have to give him the "dumbest person in Congress" honors just on the basis of his current program of holding up all general officer promotions in the Senate. Tuberville, who has never served in the military, explained his...

We've got a cool snap going into its third day here, and despite the 16 hours of daylight, it feels like autumn. But this happens every June. We just forget every year. Coming on the heels of the studies saying I don't need 10,000 steps to stay healthy, I can honestly report I'll stay healthy today without getting 10,000 steps.

Dr Aaron Carroll of Indiana University studied five other rich-country health systems to figure out what we need in the US: We are one of the few developed countries that does not have universal coverage. We spend an extraordinary amount on health care, far more than anyone else. And our broad outcomes are middling at best. When we do pay attention to this issue, our debates are profoundly unproductive. Discussions of reform here in the United States seem to focus on two options: Either we maintain the...

We lost three people last week whose deaths have made the world ever so slightly better on balance. Religious swindler Pat Robertson went first on Wednesday. Then Saturday, Ted Kaczynski, also known as the "Unabomber" for his terror campaign against university professors in the 1990s, killed himself in his jail cell: Kaczynski was found unresponsive in his cell around 12:30 a.m. ET and transported to a local hospital where he was pronounced dead, according to the Federal Bureau of Prisons. Kaczynski was...

The Post rounds up more doctors saying 7,000 or 8,000 steps a day is just fine: The notion to take 10,000 daily steps stems from a marketing ploy: As the 1964 Tokyo Summer Olympics approached, a Japanese researcher decided to nudge his nation to be more active by offering pedometers with a name that loosely translated as “10,000-step meter.” (The Japanese character for the number 10,000 looks a little like a person walking.) In the past few years, multiple large-scale studies have stepped up, looking...

Police Scotland has arrested Nicola Sturgeon, who resigned as first minister of Scotland two months ago, as part of their investigation into allegations the SNP misspent £600,000 of donated money: Her husband, Peter Murrell, the former chief executive of the SNP, was arrested at their home in Uddingston near Glasgow on 5 April, and interviewed under caution for nearly 12 hours before being released without charge. The police searched their home and back garden, and also searched the SNP’s headquarters...

I've just read the indictment against the XPOTUS and his "body man" Walt Nauta. Wow. As a FBI agent in The West Wing once remarked, "In 13 years with the Bureau I've discovered that there's no amount of money, manpower or knowledge than can equal the person you're looking for being stupid." And wow, was the XPOTUS stupid. I'm not a practicing lawyer but I can read an indictment. If the US Attorneys can prove any of these facts—and I have no doubt they will—he's going to get convicted of a felony. Oddly...

I filled up my car this afternoon, which doesn't sound like anything special until you see the numbers: Last filled up: August 21st, 292 days ago Total distance: 3,115.6 km Total fuel used: 32.8 L Fuel efficiency: 1.1 L/100 km Operating cost per kilometer: 5.9c Good going, car. You're getting the extra-tasty electricity tonight!

Televangelist and horrible person Pat Robertson has died, after a long career grifting true believers for billions: Rev. Robertson, the son of a long-serving U.S. congressman and senator from Virginia, was among the first evangelists to take religion out of the realm of private belief and into the secular arena of politics. In large part through his influence, the Christian right became a potent force in American politics and culture. Although he bristled at the term televangelist, Rev. Robertson was...